By Harry Barsan

Louisville trumps the Clemson Tigers and has now won their fifth game in a row.

Batman for a night

The Cards struck things off with five different players scoring the team’s first five buckets. Terrence Edwards Jr.’s first three-pointer and second field goal gave Louisville a 12-6 lead, early.

During this time, Louisville held Clemson scoreless for four minutes.

However, the lead evaporated as Clemson found some serious firepower to muscle out a 12-0 run. Clemson took a 23-17 lead off their run, their largest of the game.

From there it was all J’vonne Hadley. He caught fire, scoring 16 of Louisville’s next 20 points. Hadley didn’t miss a single field goal in the first half, shooting 6-of-6 from the field and 4-of-5 from the free throw line.

Louisville rode whatever momentum Clemson had into the ground, seizing it all for themselves.

The Cards went into the half ahead 42-35.

Running away

Louisville kept the energy in the second half, nearly doubling their halftime lead early with a James Scott and-1 to give Louisville their biggest lead thus far at 12 points.

Chucky Hepburn pickpocketed a Clemson player and found Aboubacar Traore on a full court assist to give, forcing a Clemson timeout as Louisville took a 56-45 lead.

Clemson found the rhythm they had been missing out of the break. They made five of their next eight threes, and later drew within two points off a 9-0 run.

Khani Rooths started a 9-0 run for the Cards with a three of his own.

After being largely quiet since his boisterous first half, Hadley found his heat again. He finished out the last seven points of the 9-0 run and scored nine of Louisville’s next 11. By this point, the crowd was chanting his surname over and over.

The nail in the coffin came from none other than Hadley, but it came in the form of an offensive rebound that ran an additional 20 seconds off the clock.

From there on out, the Tigers knew the game was out of reach and just looked for garbage time buckets.

Louisville won 74-64.

Rolling

The Cards needed every bit of Hadley today, as his big performance took on any and all of the slack the rest of the team gave Tuesday.

He ended with a stellar line of 32 points, 11 rebounds, four assists and 95% true shooting (95%!). It’s safe to say that Hadley was the MVP of this game, likely saving Louisville even with a commanding 10 point victory.

Scott picked up his second double-double of the year (11 points, 10 rebounds) and shot a perfect 5-of-5 from the field.

Despite a poor performance from the field from Chucky, he still made 6-of-8 free throws and dished out seven assists.

Louisville is now 9-0 all-time in the Derby City against Clemson, and 7-0 in the KFC Yum! Center.

Louisville improves to 11-5 on the season and 4-1 in the ACC, good enough to move them into second place in the conference.

Louisville will play at Pitt on Saturday.

Photo Courtesy // Mallory Peak, Louisville Athletics